住在排水管？解决香港住房难题的五个点子

For eight years in a row, an international survey of nearly 300 cities has named Hong Kong the world’s least affordable housing market.

对近300个城市进行的一项国际调查连续八年将香港列为全球最难以负担的房地产市场。

It is not hard to see why. Located on a group of hilly islands and a corner of the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong has always been short of places to build. The government’s reliance on land sales for revenue creates an incentive to keep prices high. Money pouring in from mainland Chinese investors pushes them even higher.

不难看出原因。香港坐落在一片多山的岛屿上，地处中国大陆一隅，建筑用地向来不足。政府收入依赖卖地，这对保持高房价起到了鼓励作用。内地投资者的资金涌入，进一步抬高了房价。

The extremes can be staggering. A single parking spot sold for $664,000 last year. Apartments only slightly bigger, and in much less desirable parts of town, go for more than $380,000. Living spaces have shrunk so much that a new term has emerged: “nano flat,” for apartments measuring around 200 square feet or less.

极端情况可能令人震惊。去年，一个停车位售价66.4万美元(约合420万元人民币)。只是稍微大一点的公寓，并且是在远非理想的地段，售价超过38万美元。居住空间被压缩得如此严重，以至出现了一个新词：“纳米房”，指的是面积大约200平方英尺(约合19平方米)或以下的公寓。

Many Hong Kongers have been priced out of the housing market, including young people forced to live with their parents. Their discontent is said to have contributed to recent street protests like the 2014 Umbrella Movement.

很多香港人因为房价过高而无法进入房地产市场，包括被迫与父母同住的年轻人。他们的不满据说是导致近年出现街头抗议的原因之一，比如2014年的雨伞运动。

A government task force is considering a wide range of options for making better use of available land. Architects and developers have also put forward some novel proposals, ranging from the quirky to the audacious. While some of the ideas may be repackaged versions of the cramped spaces the city has long known, others could reshape the future of housing in Hong Kong. Here are some of the ideas:

政府的一个特别工作小组正在考虑更好利用可用土地的广泛选择。建筑设计师和开发商也提出了一些新颖的建议，有古怪的，也有大胆的。虽然有些点子可能是重新包装这个城市早已熟悉的狭小空间，但另一些创意可能会重塑香港房地产市场的未来。下面是其中一些想法：

Living in a Drainpipe

住在排水管里

The architect James Law was at a construction site in town when he noticed some concrete pipes left over from an infrastructure project. They were large enough to walk in, cool in the summer and surprisingly nicely finished.

建筑设计师罗发礼(James Law)在城里一处建筑工地上发现了一个基础设施项目遗留下来的一些混凝土管道。它们大到人可以在里面行走，夏天凉爽，而且涂层好得出奇。

“I had a eureka moment,” he said.

“那一刻激发了我的灵感，”他说。

So he spent about a month designing and building the OPod, two sections of concrete drainpipe joined to create a living space of about 100 square feet. It includes a couch and foldout bed, a desk, shelving, a tiny kitchenette, a hanging closet and a shower.

于是，他用了大约一个月的时间设计和建造水管屋(OPod)——两节混凝土水管连接起来，形成了一个大约100平方英尺的居住空间。屋里有一张沙发兼折叠床、一张书桌、架子、一个小厨房，一个悬挂式衣橱和一个淋浴间。

The pods can be stacked up to five high, or placed in small, unused spaces between buildings and under bridges. A prototype is now on display in a waterfront park, but there are no plans yet for commercial production.

水管屋最多可以五个摞在一起，或放在建筑物之间闲置的狭小空间和桥梁下面。房屋样品目前正在一座滨水公园展出，但还没有商业建造的计划。

“It is not a complete solution to what is a very complex problem,” Mr. Law said. “But it is a fun, design-oriented way to stimulate debate and even, on a small scale, create model projects.”

“这不是彻底解决一个非常复杂的问题的办法，”罗发礼说。“但这是一种有趣的、以设计为导向的方式，可以激发讨论，甚至小规模打造样板项目。”

Return of the Tenements

回归唐楼

One idea is already a reality, in a pair of 50-year-old buildings with distinctive blue, gray and green geometric patterns.

一个想法已经在两栋建筑中实现了，它们拥有50年的历史，并且有着独特的蓝色、灰色和绿色几何图案。

The buildings stand on a street lined with shops selling power tools and industrial fans. Such tenements, known as tong lau, were common here in Hong Kong before high-rises. Synergy Biz Group, a local architecture and development company, has recycled them into communal living spaces with some modern touches.

这两栋建筑坐落在一条店铺林立，出售电动工具和工业风扇的街道上。这种房屋叫唐楼，在高楼大厦出现之前在香港很常见。香港当地的建筑和开发公司Synergy Biz Group将它们重新利用，变成了颇具现代气息的共同居住空间。

Called Bibliotheque, the buildings feature slickly designed dormitory-like living spaces with shared kitchens and bathrooms. The rooms are tiny, with about 50 square feet per single unit, and cost from about $450 to $750 a month. The residents are mostly young, drawn by rents that are low by Hong Kong standards.

这些建筑名为“书汇”(Bibliotheque)，特点是巧妙地设计出类似宿舍的生活空间，有共享的厨房和浴室。房间很小，每套房面积约为50平方英尺，每月租金从450美元至750美元不等。居民大多是被租金吸引而来的年轻人，以香港的标准看，这里的租金算是比较低的。

Jo Chow, a 33-year-old office administrator who lives in one of the spaces, said she pays half of what she did for an apartment in a more distant corner of Hong Kong.

33岁的办公室行政人员乔·周(Jo Chow)住在这里的一个空间之中。她说，她曾在香港一个更偏远的角落住过，那里一套公寓的房租是这里的两倍。

“For me, I just need a flat in a convenient location,” she said. “I don’t need a big place to live right now.”

“我只是需要在一个位置比较好的地方住下，”她说，“我目前不需要住在一个很大的地方。”

Some people have criticized these spaces as new takes on Hong Kong’s infamous “coffin homes,” apartments that have been subdivided into tiny spaces, and questioned the appeal of such cramped, communal arrangements.

有些人批评这些空间是香港臭名昭著的“棺材屋”的新版本，质疑这种狭窄公用住所的吸引力。“棺材屋”就是把公寓分成许多狭小空间的住处。

“They may save on the cost of rent,” said Yip Ngai-ming, a professor of public policy at City University of Hong Kong. “But whether it will work, I don’t know.”

“它们也许能省点房租，”香港城市大学(City University of Hong Kong)的公共政策教授叶毅明(Yip Ngai-ming)说，“但我不知道它是否可行。”

But Keith Wong, the director of Synergy, argued that group living provided security and a sense of community. He said the company wanted to add more buildings and to work with landlords to convert individual apartments.

不过，Synergy的负责人黄兆麟(Keith Wong)认为，群体生活提供了安全感和社区意识。他表示，该公司希望能增加更多的住宅楼，与房东合作，改造独立的公寓。

Building Up (Even More) to the Sky

(还要更多地)向天空伸展

Half a century ago, when refugees poured into Hong Kong to escape turmoil in mainland China, the city started a public housing program that provides residences, usually in high-rises, for nearly half of the population today.

半个世纪前，当难民为躲避中国大陆的动荡涌入香港时，该市便开始了一项公共住房计划，为当时的居民提供住处，建的大多是高楼。当时的居民人数大约是现在的一半。

The architect and professor David Erdman has suggested fitting in more people in those same buildings by going even higher, adding cornices of from 5 to 25 stories atop the existing structures, which are already often about 40 stories tall already.

建筑师兼教授戴维·厄尔德曼(David Erdman)提议把这些大楼加高，让更多的人住进去，在现有建筑的基础上增加5至25层。这些楼本身大多已有40层高。

The idea was inspired by discussions with former colleagues at the University of Hong Kong about fitting additional housing in the spaces between public housing blocks. Building upward instead would offer the same result without harming existing amenities, said Mr. Erdman, now chairman of Graduate Architecture and Urban Design at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn.

这个想法是他和香港大学的前同事们讨论如何在公共住宅区之间的空地上设置更多住处时产生的。厄尔德曼表示，向上加盖能产生同样的效果，且不会损害现有的设施。他目前是布鲁克林普拉特学院(Pratt Institute)的建筑和城市设计研究生院(Graduate Architecture and Urban Design)的院长。

His students have produced dramatic designs that would transform the drab and repetitive look of Hong Kong’s public housing complexes. “I would love to see one built,” Mr. Erdman said.

他的学生们设计出了一些引人注目的方案，旨在改变香港公共住宅大楼灰暗单调的面貌。“我很想看到某个方案能建起来，”厄尔德曼说。

Cruise Ships and Islands

邮轮和岛屿

Perhaps the most unconventional idea calls for putting people on cruise liners.

也许最不寻常的想法是让人们住在邮轮上。

The floating community would not be a permanent solution but is instead the first step in a proposal from Doctoral Exchange, a local research group.

这种浮动的社区并非永久的解决方案，而是当地研究小组“博汇”(Doctoral Exchange)一项提议中的第一步。

The second step of the plan is even more ambitious: building several large artificial islands in the sea to the south of Hong Kong. The new, 45-square-mile archipelago would fall outside Hong Kong’s boundaries, meaning it would require backing from China’s central government.

该计划的第二步更有雄心：在香港以南的海域建造几个大型人工岛。这个占地45平方英里的新群岛将处于香港的地界之外，这意味着，它将需要获得中国中央政府的支持。

Island building on such a scale would likely face opposition over potential environmental damage. But China would have at least one advantage in such a project, said Francis Neoton Cheung of Doctoral Exchange. It could use the same reclamation technology that it is currently developing in the South China Sea to build military strongholds on what were once sunken reefs, he said.

如此规模的造岛可能会由于对环境的潜在破坏而遭到反对。但是该小组的张量童(Francis Neoton Cheung)说，中国在这样的项目中至少有一个优势。他说，中国目前正在运用填海造陆技术开发南海，在那些一度下陷的礁石上建造军事据点，同一种技术也可以运用在香港。

“I know it’s a bit daring, but it might be the solution,” he said. “If circumstances allow.”

“我知道这有些大胆，但没准它就是解决办法呢，”他说。“如果条件允许的话。”

Turning Ports into Towers

变港口为高楼

Hong Kong’s container port is the world’s fifth-largest by volume. It also sits on an iconic part of the waterfront that the government task force is now looking at to ease the land shortage.

按货运量算，香港的货柜码头在世界位列第五。它坐落于一块标志性的滨海地区，政府特别工作小组也注意到了这里，希望可以利用它来缓解土地短缺。

Hundreds of thousands of people could live on the port’s 900 acres. One proposal calls for relocating the port to make way for housing. Another calls for keeping the port where it is, while constructing huge platforms above its bustling waterfront cranes on which residential skyscrapers could then be built.

这个900英亩(约合364万平方米)的港口可以住下数十万人。一项提议呼吁迁走港口，为住房让地。也有人主张在原处保留港口，但是在繁忙的港口起重机上方修建巨型平台，再在平台上建造可供居住的摩天大楼。

Officials call this idea feasible, and the port operator says it is open to the idea, but the cost and levels of public support are still unknown.

官员们认为这是个可行的主意。港口的经营者表示对这一想法持开放态度，但成本以及公众支持度仍然是未知数。

Like other more ambitious ideas for new housing, the port-topping towers might never be built. But the idea of redeveloping ports isn’t so unusual. One of Hong Kong’s first large-scale private housing developments, Taikoo Shing, was built on the site of Swire Company’s dockyards.

和其他更加雄心勃勃的住房新概念一样，这些港口之上的楼房或许永远都不会建成。但对港口进行重新开发的想法并不少见。香港首批大型私人住宅区之一太古城，正是建在太古公司的造船厂旧址之上。